Month: May, 2010

I was working my butt off for tomorrows convention, so Willem volunteered to write todays blog.
Enjoy.

It was a bit smelly in our shop today, and it had everything to do with Dennis and his two fish. Today, Mehdi gave his sweet, swimmy petpals a little bit of water to swim in, and some flowers to play with.

But, as everybody knows, working with fish is a smelly business so we were a little happy and a little sad when Dennis left.

Little did we know that our joy was not long to last… Just as our noses got used to the clean air of sweaty, rough tattooed men, the smell of fish returned. The culprit was Matthieu and his fishy sleeve. Matthieu’s koi looked a bit sad, so Mehdi added a little colour to his life. Now he is a happy fish and we all wish for him to live long and prosper, in blue waters, with many many friends. Dear TattooGods, don’t let him end up in a pile of sushi, waiting to be devoured by hungry mouths…

After we send Matthieu swimming and we could breathe again, it was time to prepare for tomorrow’s convention. Packing, building, more sweating.

Dead tired as we were, we still found the strength within to set up a photo shoot that turned out so awesome and epic, it would make strong men weak in their knees.
It would bring tears to the eyes of Zeus.
It made men grow beards.
It made women faint in excitement.

BEHOLD! As promised, the ultra-top-secret-goodie surprise!

Garments that will take all your problems and sorrows away. Clothing that, simply put, will definately make your life better.
Please drop by the shop and get yours while they last.

Remember Mr. I’ll-Ram-My-Foot-Up-Your…? Well, he was back in town today for some shading.

Still some color to come.

And just a little reminder to all you people who care.

This weekend is the annual Breda Tattoo Convention. We will be there, waiting for you guys. So come by and keep us company.
I don’t know if we have internet access over there. If so, I will be keeping you updated on the go. If not, I will put up a special convention coverage post a.s.a.p. next week.
If you come by and mention the blog and how great it is, I’ll make sure to mention you in it.

Wonder Woman came to save the day, as Willem was up to something fishy today.

Just as he was busy squeezing this here evil, up to no good, super trout into the what was left space on Jorgs leg. Making it one of the most outrageously brilliant, evil-minded trout tattooed legs in the history of mankind.

BAMMM!!! POWW!!! SMASHHHHH!!!!

Wonder Woman came smashing through the door. To kick some evil trout but.

POW!! SMACK!! KLANGG!!!!

Stunned by Wonder Womans instant super ultra surprise attack, the evil, up to no good, super trout made a quick escape.
As he fled the scene he warned her that this was not the last she would see of him, for he would come back one day as the most evilly colored trout the world has ever seen.

Finally the weather is starting to clear up and the sun is showing its face more often. So I got to sneak outside and take a snapshot of our humble abode.

This is where we tattoo drunken sailors and outlaw scum all day.

Don’t let the calm and peacefull outside fool you though, it’s hard work on the inside.

Mehdi finished up this woman turning into a demon. Wich pretty much sums up where the japanese Hannya masks come from.
The Hannya mask represents a woman who has been betrayed by love and is filled with rage, jealousy and hatred. She has become a demon, bearing little resemblance to a woman anymore.

Frank was back today to get some more work done on his Yama backpiece.

Yama is the Hindu lord of death. The Vedas describe him as the first man who died, blazing the path of mortality down which all men have since followed. He weighs the good and evil deeds of the dead and determines their retribution.

The guys here at the shop weren’t to happy with the beautiful pictures of them I put in last weeks post, seeing that I didn’t put one of myself on there aswell.
So after a quick photo session with Willem, whom was feeling a bit better today, I was forced to put up a picture of myself.

So now you know who takes the time to write to all you wonderful people everyday and keep you updated with the shop. You can even see the drawing I did for Willem in the background there.

Remember the dragon backpiece we started this blog off with, well Danny, the nice fella whos back it is, wanted it done as soon as possible so we went all out for him and doubled up on the action.

Florencio Rojas, our guest artist was all to happy to lend a helping hand in a time of need.

After a little bit of discussing of “who-is-going-to-do-what” they got started.

By the way, I am getting tattooed myself as I’m writing this, so don’t expect it to be perfect. Willem is finishing up a piece on my calve, so maybe I’ll post that soon.
But enough of that, let’s get back to the post.

Here a close up of the dragons head.

After a couple of hours Mehdi was left alone to finish up as Florencio had to finish up a piece of his own, wich I will include at the end of this post.

All off the shading and scales were done today. Not bad for about three hours of work.

After working on the backpiece with Mehdi, Florencio had some time to finish up this flower sleeve he was working on.

I was supposed to introduce you to the whole Bunker crew today and do a little tour of the shop.
Except half of the crew did not make it to work today for various reasons, so that pretty much put a dent in my plans.
Nevertheless I got some 360 panorama action for you of the shop for a quick impression.

Click on it for a better view.

Willem realy realy realy needs a manicure, if any of you reading this post can do a manicure please stop by the shop next week.

Willem stayed in late to do some work on his brother. He did some shading on a swallow piece his working on, next session he’ll add the color.

Willem got down and dirty doing this here neo-traditional foot tattoo today. Only lining for now, next time there will be more color and a lot more needles and pain, all the good stuff.You should not mess with this guy or he’ll ram his foot up your……

…..anyway…… I’ll give you a sneak peak at what’s still to come.

Probably some time this week I’ll do a little tour of the shop, and a little bit about the people that work here and ofcourse I’ll try to upload as much as possible of the work they make.

For now, you can enjoy looking at Mr. Peanut himself, Roger Merling Meijer, more on that in the next post.